Uh... I live in Canada? Hello? This is like the Petticoat Junction of the terrorist inbound route to the US. All terrorists must frolic through our golden wheat fields, pee in our beer-producing mountain streams, and fraternize with the locals before reaching the great satan.

Oh you mean like the Chaingun systems used on Royal Navy ships from the mid 70s onwards which successfully intercepted quite a few air and waterline based missiles, some got through causing the likes of the Sir Gallahad to burn out and cause several casualtys. Those systems can knock out missiles up to a mile away and the new varients which use the 'metal storm' system are lethally effective, not sure if metal storm has made it past trialling yet tho.

Do not go gently into that good night.
Old age should burn and rage at the close of day.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I saw the phalanx in action on a discovery channel special. Impressive.

Of course, this is only a minor technicality, as even when "properly elected" into office, a politician has as much chance of not having gotten there via corrupt means as Dubya has of spelling racecar backwards. --UncleJeet

I was going to post more or less what Caryn did, but she beat me too it, damn it.

It is easy to look back now that we're involved in a questionable war and say these troops shouldn't have signed up, but are you honestly advocating that nobody should join the military? That a military isn't required to defend the US against the possibility of foreign invasion, etc? Because if so...stupid...just stupid.

Of course, this is only a minor technicality, as even when "properly elected" into office, a politician has as much chance of not having gotten there via corrupt means as Dubya has of spelling racecar backwards. --UncleJeet

I saw a segment last night about how the US has tightened up the Canadian border. A middle-aged, white couple were turned back because although they had Canadian passports, the border guards wanted things like proof that they owned or rented a home, phone bills, and a bunch of other things that would be a hell of a lot easier to forge than their passports. Truckers were also pissed off at the delays, since it cuts directly into their bottom line.

All this to prevent terrorists from coming in from Canada even though none of the 9-11 suspects did.

Hitting a missile with a gun is significantly simpler than hitting a missile with another missile. Systems like the Phalanx are pretty cool, but they're doing a significantly different, and simpler job than Patriot missiles. Which from what I have read and heard, work better now than they did during the first gulf war, but don't yet really work well.

Yeah, I don't think you'd want a phalanx shredding a warhead filled with bio or chem weapons within a km above a city. That would sort of assist the dispersal. Patriot vaporizes (well, is supposed to) the payload.

Those chainguns are all well and good if you're trying to protect a very small target (like the ship the chaingun is on, or one very close to it). Not so good for protecting much else.

In any case, we're only a couple years away (maybe less, depending upon information nobody knows about due to it being classified) from high-powered lasers as a means to disable missiles (and satellites for that matter).

As to the whole reservists getting paid thing - employers are required to have their jobs waiting for them when they get back, but they're definitely not required to pay them full salary while they're gone. They might be required to pay them some, and certain employers do indeed pay the full salary, but 60 Minutes had a segment last week about the family of a reservist Sargeant who pulled down $100k is now making $40k from the Army. He and his family (wife, two kids, one on the way) live in some suburb in Massachusetts. Family can now barely make mortgage and car payments and are eating government cheese. Least they're eating, fuck the suburbs, sure, whatever you wanna say, but still, it effects their home lives in a fairly significant way.

National Guard is typically rolled out for in-state help. Back up for state cops when things get heavy, help out in states of emergency, shoot protesting college students, that sort of thing. Not sure where the funding comes from, probably a mix of state and Fed. They've got things like A-10's and what not, but I think they're a kind of modern day militias, which were also different from regular army back in the day.

Spas. They were protesting outside Leinster House (Irish Parliament) today and the Minister for Tourism was accosted on the way to his office (which is 100m up the road). Then, a Senator was daubed with paint. By 'peace' protestors.

if you could just see the beauty
there's things i could never describe

The security company that provides this building with a guard at night has stepped up their efforts because of the war ... we now have a guard during the day as well. A guard who waves and says "Hi!" as you walk by him and get on the elevator.

a good friend of mine who is currently doing internship in London, told me the London subway was surprisingly quiet this morning (in comparison to the usual), so I guess fear of terrorist attacks has really sunk in.
I must say my trip to London next week to visit my friend was certainly well timed...

I saw a report on a Dutch news show where a reporter was interviewing several people in the New York subway asking them whether they were expecting terrorist attacks, and what preparations they took.

One guy he interviewed grabbed his microphone the minute he pointed it at him, and started semi-rapping into it, like: "yeah man, ain't nuthin gonna go down, aigh. a-body be thinkin da shizzle be hittin but I'm dime."

Yo mama's so fat, all the restaurants in town have signs that says: "Maximum Occupancy: 240 Patrons OR Yo Mama"